Love Shouldn't Hurt

If you've followed the news about Chris Brown's recent arrest, have you also been thinking about the disgrace of dating violence?

I spent most of Wednesday at the Minnesota State Capitol for 3 rallies related to ending family and partner violence. 1) A “Second Chance” coalition supporting resources for people leaving prison—so that they find work, learn healthier ways to settle conflict, and don’t return to prison. 2) the Men’s Action Network, an alliance to prevent sexual and domestic violence (sadly, even in 2009, there were 10 times as many women as men at this rally) and 3) the MN domestic violence coalition, which honored (under the Capitol rotunda) all those murdered in 2008 because of domestic violence.

Domestic and partner violence doesn’t spring up in a vacuum out of nowhere. It often begins in the beginnings of intimate relationships—dating.

Charles Blow collects and shares some frightening statistics about dating violence on the NY Times blogs this morning. Be sure to read it, and then, be sure to take some action to short circuit dating violence.